Coventry City Council has agreed to spend £300,00 to help stage the BBC's Biggest Weekend music festival over May bank holiday.

The event will feature acts like Paloma Faith, Snow Patrol and Jamie Cullum and the authority says it will bring millions of pounds into the local economy.

Image source, Getty Images

The money from the council reserves will be spent on providing security and clearing up during and after the weekend.

Allen Cook
BBC News

A business park in Staffordshire could be employing more than 7,000 people in the future if expansion plans go the way that council leaders are hoping.

Staffordshire County, Wolverhampton City and South Staffordshire councils collaborated on launching the i54 business park in 2015 at junction 2 of the M54 motorway.

Image source, Wolverhampton City Council

Since then, firms like Jaguar Land Rover and Tentec have employed, the authorities claim, 2,500 people on the site and they say there could be another 2,100 workers on the current site in the next few years.

If that is the case, a planned £600m expansion announced by the councils this week to bring 2,700 jobs, external would take the potential total for the future to 7,300.

The proposal to extend over another 100 acres will be done in two parts with the first, for 60, due to be submitted to South Staffordshire District Council this spring.

Birmingham's The Rep theatre says it is still without heating and hot water after Tuesday's "technical fault" which led to its evacuation amid reports of an explosion.

The theatre is open as usual and hopes to return to normal tomorrow.

The restaurant bar and toilets are still closed, but free bottles of water are being given to audiences and the nearby ICC and Symphony Hall have made their toilets and bars available to Rep customers.

Image source, Google

Allen Cook
BBC News

An electrical fault in a television has turned out to be the cause of a fire which a family had to escape from near Burton., external

Image source, Google

The couple and their six children had to get out through a first floor window after the blaze on Monday morning on Twentylands, Rolleston-on-Dove.

They also rescued one of their dogs and fire crews rescued three more dogs, but say hamsters and a pet hedgehog died in the blaze.

Today, the fire service says the blaze began in the TV in the lounge.

Allen Cook
BBC News

Thousands of fake cigarettes have been found in raids on four shops in Burton.

Image source, Staffordshire County Council

Trading standards offices with sniffer dogs went to the stores on Saturday and found 43,500 illicit cigarettes and 10kg of hand-rolling tobacco.

Staffordshire County Council says two foreign nationals were arrested in the raids and handed over to immigration enforcement officers.

Shropshire Star

Here are three of the headlines from the Shropshire Star website today:

• Telford A&E closure plan ‘is ludicrous’ - health boss, external
• Two people cut free and M54 rush hour delays following multiple crashes, external
• Consultation over Telford flood relief scheme, external

Phil McCann
Cheshire Political Reporter, BBC News

Crewe's MP says she's "over the moon" that plans to have only one full time crewed fire engine in the town have been rejected.

Cheshire Fire Service had proposed to staff the second pump with on-call firefighters which would have halved the number of whole time firefighters based at the station.

The service's Chief Fire Officer says £450,000 that would have been saved through the changes at Crewe will now need to be found elsewhere in the service.

Researchers are looking into killing cancer cells using a stinging substance found in the insects.

Council tax will be going up by 4.94% from April in Worcestershire, adding roughly £57 a year to average band D bills.

The Conservative group on Worcestershire County Council voted for the rise after a bid by the Liberal Democrats and Greens to increase it by 6% was rejected.

Image source, Getty Images

Vicky Norton
BBC Radio Stoke

Crewe Alexandra football club says it was never aware at any time of any sexual abuse by its former coach Barry Bennell., external

Image source, Julia Quenzler

This week, the 64-year-old, who worked with Manchester City and Crewe's youth teams, was convicted of abusing 11 boys aged eight to 15 between 1979 and 1990.

Today, Crewe said in a statement that, as well as repeating that the club was never aware of any abuse by Bennell, it never had any complaint about him before or during his work with the club.

He worked there twice between 1985 and 1992 and Crewe says, both times "he left for football-related reasons".

The club expressed its "deepest sympathies" to Bennell's victims and said it worked closely with the police investigation.

Coventry Telegraph

These are some of the top stories from the Coventry Telegraph today:

• Huge cannabis farm overheats and burns down Coventry house, external
• Plans for 240 new homes in Tile Hill, external
• Martial arts expert fights off five machete-wielding robbers, external

The Food Standards Agency, Interpol and British police have been attempting to stop diet pills containing 2,4-dinitrophenol - or DNP - entering the UK, but the drugs are still getting through.

DNP is an industrial chemical which can burn fat, but it is not intended to consumed by humans and it has been linked to a number of deaths, including Eloise Parry (pictured below) from Shrewsbury in 2015 and Beth Shipsey from Worcester in 2017.

Image source, Parry family

Around 19 websites believed to be selling diet products containing a chemical have been shut down, but a recent BBC investigation found they were still available.

Warwickshire CEO Neil Snowball hails Edgbaston's allocation of major matches as a "fantastic result".

Mylee Billingham, eight, was found with a fatal stab wound in Walsall in January.

Plans to build up to 600 homes in Shrewsbury have been approved by Shropshire Council after a compromise on an access road.

Taylor Wimpey and Persimmon Homes originally offered to build the road after 250 of the homes were built, but have now agreed to build it sooner - after the first 150 are built - in about 18 months time.

The plans for the road layout on the estate, in between Shirehall and Shrewsbury College, were also changed and the developers have agreed to create pathways and cycle paths.

The Piddle Brook in Worcestershire has recovered after yesterday's pollution incident and all the dead fish have been removed.

The Environment Agency said yesterday it believed hundreds of fish had died and it is continuing to monitor the water quality today.

Image source, Environment Agency

It added waste water from a farm was to blame.

A Birmingham hospital is using a robotic arm to complete hip replacements.

Dan Roan
BBC Sports editor

The Barry Bennell scandal was "brushed under the carpet" by Crewe Alexandra, according to the eminent barrister who prosecuted the serial paedophile in 1998.

Lord Carlile - one of the country's top legal experts - told the BBC the club at the centre of the case was guilty of "institutional failure" over their former youth coach.

He also fears young footballers were abused because "this danger was not drawn to the attention of a wider public".

Bennell, 64, who has already served three prison sentences, has been convicted of 43 further charges of child sex abuse by a jury at Liverpool Crown Court.

Crewe say the club did not know about Bennell's crimes until he was arrested in 1992 and are conducting their own investigation.

How an English manager, an irrepressible chairman and a modestly assembled squad have taken Ostersunds FK from the Swedish fourth tier to the Europa League knockout round in seven years.

Ex-footballers speak after the former youth coach and scout is convicted of 43 sex assaults on 11 boys.